


Short Hair

by erebones



Series: Sera Cousland [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 06:04:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4595688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In memory of her mother, the Seawolf, Sera Cousland cuts her hair.</p><p>now with podfic by kinkyfenris! http://tindeck.com/listen/epqir</p>
            </blockquote>





	Short Hair

**Author's Note:**

> I went to look up Eleanor Cousland's history and it's frickin awesome. An infamous Raider who took down an Orlesian warship at 15? Damn girl, your daughter's gonna follow in your footsteps.  
> __
> 
> Warnings listed above for reference to what happened to the Couslands. Spoilers for the human noble warrior origin.

Ostagar was bustling with soldiers. Sera slipped among them like a shadow, head down, grateful for the anonymity of her borrowed leathers. To them she was just another recruit, another mindless drone for King Cailan’s army. It was oddly freeing. Away from Duncan’s sharp gaze, separated from the horrible night that had wrenched her reality on its head, she felt just a little bit like she could breathe properly.

But still the weight of it lingered. She was supposed to be finding the other Warden, Alan something, but surely a few minutes to herself wouldn’t hurt. Duncan had implied she should take some time to be alone. He’d hardly left her side long enough to let her piss in the past four days, no doubt worried she’d fall on her sword out of grief before she had the chance to undertake the Joining, but she couldn’t even fathom such a thing. She had business to take care of before any of that. Deadly business.

The memory of Arl Howe made her lip curl. She ducked into a dusty alcove, away from the main body of traffic, and crouched against the stone wall. From under her shirt, she pulled free a locket and loosed the catch. Inside, trapped under a smooth layer of wax, was a small curl of dark hair framing a rosebud, caught forever in the moment of opening. The other side held a portrait of the hair’s owner: a younger version of her mother, not much older than Sera herself. The artist had captured the likeness admirably. There was Sera’s short, stubborn chin, her full mouth, her narrow grey eyes. And the famous Mac Eanraig hair.

A short sob escaped her before she could stop it, and she pressed her hand to her mouth quickly. She’d grown up on the stories of the Soldier and the Seawolf, heard the song sung as a babe being rocked to sleep. Her father’s voice rang in the back of her mind like a bell being struck, rich and rolling, echoed by her mother’s fierce laughter. The portrait showed her as she had been upon her marriage to Teryn Cousland, her braids grown out and coifed in an elegant pile of curls atop her head. But there was a portrait hanging in her parent’s chambers that she’d fawned over often as a child. It depicted the infamous Seawolf as she had been during her raider days: red war paint smudged around her eyes, curls long and wild, hair shorn close around her ears and braided back in a wild manner more befitting a Fereldan battlemaiden than a Teryna.

Sera fingered her own curls, looser than her mother’s but still dark and difficult to tame. They were coming loose from the simple braid she’d worn to bed five nights ago, and the strands frizzed around her face unpleasantly. Hardly dignified. She took a quick breath for resolve and snapped the locket shut, taking up her knife. Her hair had never been cut, and the braid went nearly to her waist. After so long unbrushed, it was somewhat matted, snarls catching her fingers as she tried to unwind it. Eventually she gave up. Gripping the braid tightly near the base, she brought the knife firmly across. The freed rope of hair fell into her lap and lay there, forlorn.

“Be brave now, Cousland,” she whispered, hands shaking as she unwound the rest of the braid. “Be brave, Mac Eanraig, daughter of raiders.”

The knife lay close against her temple. She drew the edge along her scalp, and the shorn locks came away in her hand. Patiently she worked, scraping awkwardly at the back of her head, nicking her ear once or twice before the job was done. What was left she gathered in a short, stubby tail at the back of her head. A pale mimic of her mother’s glorious mane, but perhaps this was better. Long hair was only a target for grabbing in battle.

She swept the hair aside and dropped from her crouch to sit crosslegged on the old flagstones, rummaging in her pack. She’d left home with close to nothing, but charity from Duncan—his duty as her future commanding officer, he’d said—and some careful foraging along the way had provided her with some essentials. And this, at least, she knew how to do, memories flooding back from a childhood spent playing the Seawolf. Dried spindleweed, a pinch of elfroot extract, a few chips of redbark mixed together and pounded into a paste with the butt of her knife. The stuff smeared smoothly around her eyes and down the bridge of her nose, winged back into her shorn hairline. She had no mirror, but the feel of it drying into an even layer was enough.

She stood and dusted herself off. Resolve trickled through her as she stared at the curls lying forgotten on the ground, the smear of red paint on stone. She was her father’s shieldmaiden, her mother’s daughter. And she would avenge them.

She took a breath, and stepped back into the crowd, head a little higher. Eyes caught on her now, on her strange hair, the blood-red warpaint that made her eyes blaze blue from her pale face. No longer just another soldier. That was fine by her.

 

* * *

 **A/N:** You can find a portrait of Sera at my sketchblog [here](http://lyriumghostling.tumblr.com/post/126923848789/sera-cousland-after-the-fifth-blight-the-hair-and). [kinkyfenris ](http://kinkyfenris.tumblr.com)on tumblr has made a gorgeous podfic for this which you can listen to [here](You%20can%20find%20a%20portrait%20of%20Sera%20at%20my%20sketchblog%20here.%20Thanks%20for%20reading!)!! Thanks for reading!


End file.
